


a kind of prayer

by Nana



Category: Pokemon
Genre: Gen, one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nana/pseuds/Nana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Green, thinking of Red has become a kind of prayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a kind of prayer

It's not that they were supposed to _meet_ in Masara after the Indigo League Battle. It was more like he didn't have any other place to go. Especially after his embarrassingly short-lived role as League Champ.

He'd thought he would meet him there, of course. It was the kind of certainty that comes along when you feel like you truly know someone.

"What do you mean she hasn't spoken with him?" Green asks his sister, a week after his arrival in town.

Nanami shrugs. "Hanako-san said he hasn't called her in four months."

"Four months?"

Green knows he's been wrong about many things in his life, but he has never, _ever,_ counted Red as one of them.

* * *

 

When he got to his hometown after two long years of traveling and two short days of being the Pokemon Champion title-holder, Green had been _brooding_. His grandfather had been in a particularly apprehensive mood on the drive back, wedging peppy small talk between a litany of disappointment.

"When is he coming back?" Green had interrupted his grandfather mid-speech. He'd been going endlessly on how to properly care for Pokemon companions.

"...Ah? Who?"

Green rolled his eyes. "The current Champion, the one you're so proud of" he would've liked to say, but in the end he thought better of it and referred to the person solely by his given name.

"Well, he could come back any time, I suppose. As Champion, he's free to go wherever he pleases."

For the remainder of the way, Green had looked out of the window. He believed to have seen the shadow of an ancient Pokemon bird he could recall from the textbooks at his grandfather's lab. After a while, he dismissed what he saw as a passing cloud.

It was definitely going to rain when they got to Masara.

* * *

 

"When it rains, it pours..." Green hears himself say one murky evening. He's having tea with Red's mother, in Red's house and he's even wearing a pair of Red's socks because his own are currently drying by the stove.

Hanako is sitting in front of him, taking quiet sips from his teacup. She looks exactly the same as the day both Green and Red left to become the best Pokemon trainers in Kanto. It's odd, and it reminds Green of why he thinks the time-flow in this town is all screwed up.

"Are you enjoying your tea, dear?" Hanako asks with the same tone of voice she used to ask if Green wanted a Chansey-shaped band-aid on his scraped knee.

He nods and smiles, feeling warm despite the weather outside. Hanako smiles back at him and, in that instant, Green feels so much like her son that he feels a little sorry for Red.

When the rain has passed and he is ready to leave, Hanako gives him a fruit-basket for him to take home. She hugs him good-bye at the door, and even though the angle's all wrong because he's not a kid anymore, it still makes him go a little teary-eyed.

Green doesn't remember anything about his real mom. The only association he can trace back to his parent is a framed picture of a smiling couple Nanami keeps in their living room.

When he gets home, Green takes off his shoes, leaves the basket by the kitchen counter and lights a stick of incense for his mom and dad. He can't quite shake feeling grateful for the rest of the day. 

* * *

 

All Green wanted when they finally got back home was to _sleep_. On his own bed, possibly forever.

The townspeople didn't quite agree with him, though. After all, it wasn't every day that a small town like Masara produced two Pokemon Champions in such a short amount of time.

Everybody was out and about. Fireworks in the sky, paper lanterns on the streets and they even had a giant poster with big bold letters that said 'Welcome back' and something about 'Masara pride'. The homecoming festival, or whatever it was, lasted for two whole days.

Green doesn't remember most what actually happened. He drank lots of sake, _lots_. But what he knows he'll never forget is feeling, for a fleeting moment, like he had actually won something.

Then some guys that used to bully him and Red in their childhood days clapped him on the back and said: "what about the actual Champion? Is Red-sama coming home?"

And just like that, party was over for Green.

* * *

 

"Why does everybody _assume_ that I know where Red is?" Green asks his sister one day. Some kids had been pestering him on his way to the grocery store that morning, asking questions about the current Champion. He'd lashed out at them, the poor things. They had gone running back to their mothers.

It's not the first time someone corners Green to ask after Red. He's only been in Masara for a month, but it's already impossible for him to go out unnoticed. It has become a sort of routine for him to stay indoors all day just to avoid being questioned about Red's whereabouts.

Green knows it's not a very healthy routine.

His ever-patient sister brings a bowl of juicy strawberries out of the fridge. It's someone's birthday at the lab, and she's currently focused in decorating a strawberry-chocolate cake. "Well, what do you expect? The whole town has always thought of you as a pair. Ever since you were little. It was always 'Green and Red' this, 'Red and Green' that..."

"Yeah, well we're not little anymore!" Green bangs his fist on the kitchen table.

Nanami rolls her eyes and places a heart-shaped strawberry on the chocolate icing with precision, unperturbed. "Look, you both left Masara at the same time. You were on the same journey for two years, pursuing the same goals. It's only natural for people to think you'd be coming back together as well."

The way his sister puts it, she makes it all sound so _easy_. It makes Green want to hit his head against the table.

He finds it annoying that people are always asking him about Red, but it's not for the reasons Green tells himself, and _that's_ just the thing. In all honesty, Green feels like he _should_ , by all means, know just where the hell Red has been. How he's doing, what he's been up to.

He feels that Red should have, at least, told _him._

But Red didn't. And that's what really bothers him.

* * *

 

Official Indigo League records show that Green hasn't been the briefest Champion in the history of Pokemon battles. The honor goes to some nameless guy that somehow skipped past the Elite Four and challenged the Champion of those days. That was about 30 years prior Green's time. Records weren't kept as strictly.

Becoming the Champion... it wasn't all that hard once you set your mind on it. It'd become almost methodical for Green, at one point. He trained his Pokemon team to be the very best, defeated all the Gym leaders and collected their badges. Many before him had accomplished it, and he'd been aware that many more after him would, too.

He was actually one of the lucky ones; for those two days, he'd felt at the top of the world. But then, Red came and went, taking with him everything Green had achieved in those two years full of hardships.

Now, Green knows that wasn't _all_ Red took away from him. Now, Green has finally realized that Red not only took what Green _won_ on the Indigo League Battle.

Red also took with him something Green _lost_ , long ago. Something Green has missed for the longest time and hadn't even known.

Now he knows.

 _That's_ what he really misses, and _that's_ what Green really wants back.

 


End file.
